This guide provides resources for the planning and implementation of health systems in Pacific island countries to support improved decision-making and service delivery. With increased internet connectivity, Pacific island countries have more opportunities to connect remote health facilities for greater information exchange. This guide draws on experiences from Pacific island countries that have already invested in digital health and brings together practical tools and resources to support all stages of digital health planning and implementation. It includes extensive contributions from practitioners, government staff, and development partners in the Pacific health sector.

Oral diseases affect about 3.5 billion people around the world. As well as impacting health, they also affect overall well-being and quality of life, especially where resources for prevention, diagnosis and treatment are limited. Approaches based on new digital health technologies can contribute to better oral health for all. In the context of the Be He@lthy Be Mobile initiative, the World Health Organization and the International Telecommunication Union have developed "Mobile technologies for oral health: an implementation guide." This new resource provides guidance on promoting oral health, training health workers, detecting oral health conditions, collecting epidemiological data, and monitoring the quality of patient care, all through mobile technologies. It will help countries develop and implement mOralHealth programmes to complement existing oral health programmes. The handbook is intended to assist policy- and decision-makers and implementers to realize a national or large-scale mOralHealth programme.

The coronavirus disease or COVID-19 taught the world that it needs new investments and reforms to prepare for pandemics and disasters. Timely, accurate information must be available to support national and supranational responses. The guidance note offers information and insights on the global pandemic, focusing on trade facilitation and representing a snapshot in time, based on global knowledge shared in documents and online meetings. The note aims to build a shared framework to understand trade facilitation and border health in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report explores digital solutions that can support the core business processes of public health insurance operators in Asia and the Pacific. It draws on examples from low- and middle-income countries from the region and beyond to demonstrate how digital solutions have improved health insurance management and administration. To support decision-making on potential investments, the report identifies key success factors for integrating new technologies into public health insurance schemes.

Digital Adaptation Kits (DAKs) are part of WHO’s SMART guidelines initiative. This aims to ensure that the content of WHO’s evidence-based guidelines is accurately reflected in the digital systems being used at country level. The DAKs provide software-neutral, operational, and structured documentation based on WHO recommendations related to clinical care, health systems and use of data, to systematically and transparently inform the design of digital systems. Standard components of each DAK include: (1) linked health interventions and recommendations; (2) user personas; (3) user scenarios; (4) business processes and workflows; (5) core data elements mapped to standard terminology codes (e.g. the international classification of diseases); (6) decision support; (7) programme indicators; and (8) functional and non-functional requirements.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is once again in the news, with many major figures urging caution as developments in the technology accelerate. AI impacts all aspects of our lives, but perhaps the discipline of Biomedical Informatics is more affected than most, and is an area where the possible pitfalls of the technology might have particularly serious consequences. This book presents the papers delivered at ICIMTH 2023, the 21st International Conference on Informatics, Management, and Technology in Healthcare, held in Athens, Greece, from 1-3 July 2023. The ICIMTH conferences form a series of scientific events which offers a platform for scientists working in the field of biomedical and health informatics from all continents to gather and exchange research findings and experience. The title of the 2023 conference was Healthcare Transformation with Informatics and Artificial Intelligence, reflecting the importance of AI to healthcare informatics. A total of 252 submissions were received by the Program Committee, of which 149 were accepted as full papers, 13 as short communications, and 14 as poster papers after review. The papers cover a wide range of technologies, and topics include imaging, sensors, biomedical equipment, and management and organizational aspects, as well as legal and social issues. The book provides a timely overview of informatics and technology in healthcare during this time of extremely fast developments, and will be of interest to all those working in the field.

Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health was released in September 2019, before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March 2020. Improving social conditions remains critical to improving health outcomes, and integrating social care into health care delivery is more relevant than ever in the context of the pandemic and increased strains placed on the U.S. health care system. The report and its related products ultimately aim to help improve health and health equity, during COVID-19 and beyond. The consistent and compelling evidence on how social determinants shape health has led to a growing recognition throughout the health care sector that improving health and health equity is likely to depend â€" at least in part â€" on mitigating adverse social determinants. This recognition has been bolstered by a shift in the health care sector towards value-based payment, which incentivizes improved health outcomes for persons and populations rather than service delivery alone. The combined result of these changes has been a growing emphasis on health care systems addressing patients' social risk factors and social needs with the aim of improving health outcomes. This may involve health care systems linking individual patients with government and community social services, but important questions need to be answered about when and how health care systems should integrate social care into their practices and what kinds of infrastructure are required to facilitate such activities. Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health examines the potential for integrating services addressing social needs and the social determinants of health into the delivery of health care to achieve better health outcomes. This report assesses approaches to social care integration currently being taken by health care providers and systems, and new or emerging approaches and opportunities; current roles in such integration by different disciplines and organizations, and new or emerging roles and types of providers; and current and emerging efforts to design health care systems to improve the nation's health and reduce health inequities.

The biennial Digital Review of Asia Pacific is a comprehensive guide to the state-of-practice and trends in information and communication technologies for development (ICTD) in the Asia Pacific region.This fourth edition (2009-2010) features 30 economies and four sub-regional groupings. The chapters provide updated information on ICT infrastructure, industries, content and services, key programs, enabling policies and regulation, education and capacity building, open source, and research and development initiatives, as well as ICTD challenges in each of the economies covered. The common framework that underpins these reports allows readers to undertake a comparative analysis and assess progress across Asia Pacific.In addition, regional overviews provide a synthesis of ICTD trends, regulatory issues, and lessons for managing innovation in the network economy. The thematic chapters focus on issues in ICT in education, a key area in ICTD.The authors are drawn from government, academe, industry and civil society, providing a broad perspective on the use of ICTs for human development.